The Splendid City

First, let me say that as I sit here, typing this, I am wearing my long underwear and my pants cuffs are soaked up to mid-thigh. So, I've earned my right to espouse upon the topic of the weather for a bit...

I love Chicago.

She is, in my mind, The Splendid City.

I love her beautiful architecture. I love her public parks. I love her nightclubs and bars. I love her theaters and comedy clubs. I love her little mom and pop burger joints. I love her tiny, self-owned resale shops. I love public transportation. I love her beaches. I love nearly everything about her. Walking on a Chicago city street at 3 in the morning, on some warm summer night with some pretty little gal is almost as pleasurable as a long, lazy afternoon of sex. It's that good.

It is my theory that God, in his infinite wisdom, has placed this Heavenly city on the Earth for us to enjoy. To live well and enjoy a long, happy live there. And to make sure that this Splendid City is enjoyed by the devout and the worthy, he has sent the Midwestern Snow Storm to test their mettle.

If a Chicagoan can brave the walk from train station to office, in wind so strong that it threatens to lay you down on the sidewalk and hold you there, past rivers of slushy melted snow and over the ankle-mangling, moonscape geography of a heavily-trod, un-shoveled sidewalk, to get to a job that the don't really like, all that much, without investigating apartment rental rates somewhere in the American Southwest, then they are good and pure and tested and holy and deserve to enjoy the pleasures that this bountiful city has to offer. This is God's way of discouraging the raging assholes of the world from staying here.

I gladly suffer it. The spring and summer and made that much sweeter because I know that they're book-ended by 7 months of icy, frigid hellishness.

Cheers,
Mr.B